Top 10 Nations with LargestLatter-day Saint Communities

Top 10 U.S. States with Highest Proportion of Latter-day Saints in the Population, 1990

Note: Data from this and following tables come from the 1990 Glenmary Research Institute study of county-by-county membership data from 130 U.S. denominations. The data was based on organizational reporting. Adherents.com has correlated these data with results from the 1990 Kosmin/NSRI (National Survey of Religious Identification) study (nationwide, phone survey-based; sample size: 113,000). For Latter-day Saint statistics, the match between the two data sets is very close: In exactly one half of the states, the Kosmin (self-identification) figure was slightly higher than the Glenmary (organizational reporting) figure; in the other half the Glenmary figure was slightly higher.

The implication of this correlation is that in the United States, the overwhelming majority of people who consider themselves Latter-day Saints are officially counted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, just as the majority of people counted by the Church of Jesus Christ consider themselves to be Latter-day Saints.

This is not necessarily typical for all religious groups. In other Kosmin-Glenmary correlations, many religious groups had considerably more self-identified members than the organization claimed (indicating a large percentage of nominal-only "adherents"). Some religious groups had considerably less (indicating over-reporting or high levels of disaffiliation).

Sociologists are warned that these findings cannot necessarily be extrapolated beyond the U.S. setting.

State

Number ofcongregations

Number ofmembers

Percent of statepopulation

Utah

2,924

1,236,242

71.76%

Idaho

662

268,060

26.63

Wyoming

128

45,793

10.10

Nevada

198

89,033

7.41

Arizona

469

199,761

5.45

Montana

106

28,620

3.58

Hawaii

109

38,303

3.46

Oregon

228

89,601

3.15

Washington

371

150,634

3.10

Alaska

58

15,751

2.86

Top 10 U.S. States with Most Latter-day Saints, 1990

State

Number ofcongregations

Number ofmembers

Percent of statepopulation

Utah

2,924

1,236,242

71.76%

California

1,323

533,741

1.79

Idaho

662

268,060

26.63

Arizona

469

199,761

5.45

Washington

371

150,634

3.10

Texas

329

111,276

0.66

Oregon

228

89,601

3.15

Nevada

198

89,033

7.41

Colorado

193

70,313

2.13

Florida

160

59,845

0.46

States on both lists (Highest Number and Highest Percent): Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, and Nevada.

Top 25 U.S. Counties with Highest Proportion of Latter-day Saints, 1990

A bit of trivia: In 1990 the "least Latter-day Saint" state in the country was Rhode Island. Rhode Island had the smallest number of Latter-day Saints of any state (1,438), the smallest number of congregations (5), and the smallest proportion of Latter-day Saints in the population (0.14%), or about 1 member for every 714 people. Still, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the 11th largest Christian denomination in the state, according to the Glenmary data, and Miss Rhode Island of 1999, Karen Lindsay, is a Latter-day Saint.

Source of County and State Statistics:Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1990, published by the Glenmary Research Center, P.O. Box 507, Mars Hill, NC 28754. Principle investigator: Church Growth Research Center, Church of the Nazarene, Kansas City, MO. This data source was obtained from the American Religion Data Archive.

Latter-day Saints as a percentage of state populations. Click here or on map to see a larger version.

Temple Geography Links

Some web pages about Latter-day Saint Temple geography (temples offer a unusually manageable subject for detailed geographic analysis, as they are relatively few in number, and complete lists are readily available.):